The abyssal whip is a one-handed melee weapon. It requires 70 Attack to wield and may be obtained as a drop from abyssal demons, which require 85 Slayer to harm. The abyssal whip has a special attack that drains the target's run energy.

Abyssal whips were introduced with the Slayer skill. Given the high Slayer level required to obtain abyssal whips and the slow speed of the skill, abyssal whips were fairly uncommon shortly after the skill's release.

A wyrm spike can be added to an abyssal whip to turn it into a lava whip. The lava whip is a tier 85 weapon with a different special attack. Abyssal whips are also used to charge the lava whip to keep it from degrading.

Unlike most one-handed weapons, the abyssal whip lacks a direct off-hand counterpart due to animation difficulties.[1] Instead, the enhanced excalibur is the off-hand equivalent of an abyssal whip. With the release of Prifddinas, several new crystal weapons were introduced, including the off-hand crystal dagger, which can be used as a substitute for whip's off-hand. However, the completion of the quest Roving Elves and a skill level of 50 in Agility is required to equip the crystal equipment.

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Since the whip's introduction into the game in 26 January2005, it has undergone several graphical and functional changes. When PvP worlds were introduced, an abyssal whip was a possible drop from killing another player in PvP combat. However, on 16 June2009, abyssal whips, along with other unique boss drops, were removed from the drop table. Jagex cited complaints on the forums as the reason for this move.

With the Barbarian Assault improvements update on 19 January2010, players were given the option of purchasing abyssal whip paint in any of four different colours for a price of 50 honour points each. The whips may be coloured blue, white, green, or yellow, and colouring a whip renders it untradeable and non-lendable. However, the paint may be removed using a cleaning cloth, returning the whip back to normal. On 29 March2010, the rewards interface was updated so that players could recolour whips indefinitely once the specific colour had been purchased. Prior to this, each time a whip was coloured, 50 honour points were required.

When the abyssal whip first came out, the special attack would have a 50% chance of you hitting your max hit, or a zero. This was later updated and changed to a special attack that drained run energy.

When sheathed, the abyssal whip is located on the right side of the player - the side in which off-handed weapons are sheathed - while other main-handed weapons are located on the left side when sheathed.

It previously had a drop rate of 1/512 from Abyssal demons, but was changed to 1/1024 on 4 February2014.[2]

Prior to the Evolution of Combat, the abyssal whip was arguably the most commonly used weapons in RuneScape 2 by high level players for its then paramount accuracy and damage output per tick. This translated into its market price, which reached over 25 million coins.